This invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing and serially dispensing discrete groups of documents, and in particular to a system for identifying and sequentially arranging a plurality of coded documents which are traveling in a stream in the apparatus.
Mass mailers, such as credit card companies, gasoline retailers, mass merchandise retailers, and the like, deal with massive quantities of documents which need to be sorted, folded, joined with other documents, and eventually inserted into envelopes and mailed. In order to automatically handle tasks which would take dozens of humans working at relatively slow rates, sorting and mailing equipment has been developed by many companies for automating the laborious and massive task.
The Phillipsburg Division of Bell & Howell Co. manufactures and sells an automated mailing line including a cutter or burster for separating computer generated coded documents, a folder for folding the documents, a sequencer for collating documents in the proper order, an inserter track where various desired inserts are added to the collated documents, and subsequent envelope stuffing and handling stations where documents are inserted within an envelope and the envelope is prepared for mailing. Handling of a document depends on the code carried by each document.
While such apparatus is essentially automated from document creation to application of postage to an envelope, one problem suffered by such equipment is a lack of high speed processing due to an inability to individually and rapidly handle documents after they are cut from computer generated forms. In such equipment, the documents are handled mechanically, with the location of the document being determined by the conveying speed in the burster. Coded information is read from a document while in the burster, and interpretation of the code is dependent entirely upon mechanical accuracy of location of the document in the burster. Thus, document speed must be slow and controlled. If the predetermined sequential relationships within the apparatus are inadvertently changed, proper document orientation can be disrupted, requiring a temporary shutdown of the equipment for readjustment to ensure proper sequencing.